Global Integration atWyeth

John BrownellSeptember 15, 2009

New Way of Conducting Business

• Information technology evolving into a tool for integration on a global scale

• Seamless communication and interaction between multiple locations

• Real-time information across various platforms

The Early Life of I.T at Wyeth

• Prioritized as a insufficient business operation

• Decentralized I.T environment

• Inadequate I.T infrastructure and information availability

So Why Integrate Globally?

• Competitive advantage

• Managing the global supply chain

• Reduce time of generating pertinent information about product performance to managerial level

Motivation for Integration

• Ability to identify and tap into new markets, increasing stakeholder value

• Standardization across and between affiliates

• Establish a global organization culture

Concerns of Global Integration

• Larger regions are resisting and are not willing to share information across affiliates

• The overall misunderstanding of the impact information technology creates for a global corporation

Integration Strategy Concerns

• Immaturity of Wyeth’s business processes damaged a global integration solution

• Lack of cultural interaction between affiliates

• Qualified personnel for a global solution

Implementation Obstacles

• Migration of affiliate’s IT infrastructure to corporate data center

• Means of funding the global integration solution

• Existing business model with multiple regulations

Proposed Integration Strategy

• Institute a global IT approach to create formal systems processes

• Restructuring global IT personnel to have one reporting line to the lead of IT globalization.

• Establish IM specialists to implement business requirements

• Start building a regional IT architecture to transition seamlessly into a global IT architecture

• Build a global warehouse

Global Integration Plan

• The major IT plan was felt to deal more with changing to central IT than global integration

• Steering committees developed for creating systems processes and buy-in from key people

• IT resources implemented to support specific regions called RSC

Gaining Acceptance

• On-site IT team presents to key stakeholders to 40 locations

• Presentations included creating uniform data models, a regionalized centralization of services and equipment and changes in reporting line

Acceptance Success or Failure?

• Visits were seen as a success as managers agreed with the new procedures and structure

• Reporting line changes saw resistance from decentralized cultures

Slowly but Surely

• IT globalization team efforts to help affiliates fully understand the IT globalization initiative was slowly playing off

• Affiliate began to understand the vision and plans of the IT globalization team

Starting Small

• Implementation started with smaller regions

• Smaller affiliates were more acceptant toward the integration strategy and needed the IT resources

Management Overtaking Success

• Regional IT directors manage four relationship managers, who oversee specific country’s needs

• The regional IT directors now responsible for application and system development

Ending Big

• The more resources and independence the harder it was to implement

• Acceptance from large regions, like Europe, had to be accomplished by changing how the plan was presented

• Changes in plan is key to larger region success

Overview of Implementation

• Enterprise applications managed by corporate IT

• RSC is centerpiece for global IT architecture

• Global warehouse implemented slowly using SAP software

• Consolidation of AS400 systems

Globalization Into Integration

• A globalized company, like Wyeth, needs to integrate all its affiliates in order to stay competitive

• IT is the enabler of the integration process

• Standardization becomes the backbone of the global integration strategy